Ah, witness the return of my favorite purveyors of 'ethno-ambio-organo-whatever'
music... In my opinion, the music of Muslimgauze works best in the longer
tracks and records; I groove better with the long, slow suites of 'Veiled
Sisters' than the albums full of short, dissimilar tracks like 'Citadel'
or 'Zul'm.' And thus I love this one - 70 minutes divided into 4 tracks of
beautiful mellow eastern-style music. The tracks here tend to build as they
progress, starting with a percussive base, then mixing in the samples and
keyboards slowly, always emphasizing that beautiful hummmmm that makes it
for me. This disc also tends to be less sample-heavy than the previous work,
that is, you don't have sudden bursts of Arabic people screaming at you...
which is good. Nothing ruins your enjoyment of a good drone more than someone
yelling "jihad! jihad!" So, yes, this is excellent - limited edition
of 1,000.

review by Grievous
Noise From The Spleens Of Space

The following appeared in NHZ.

Muslimgauze, reviving the enlightened strength of his past vision ("Zul'm". "United States of Islam"), reveal to us in whispered words the celestial beauties of gardens sprinkled with water streams. The lyrics, jumped at like puffs of spirits, take on the strengths of traditional instruments and ethereal atmospheres in order to describe the inexpressible. No crack in this oneiric transcendence. Only remains the sublime of the moment.

review by Nicolas Prevel
NHZ Magazine (April, 1995)

The following appeared on Concept.

Without doubt there are numerous of you that have broken contact with Muslimgauze
since :"Vote Hezbollah". Did the ever-present electronics of "Veiled
Sisters", "Infidel", "Blue Mosque" and did the buzzing
of "Hebron Massacre" put you in mind of the bumblebee? Are you
hungry for something more like "Zul'm"? "Al-Zulfiquar Shaheed" is
for you... Resuming the percussive impetus of "United States Of Islam" or
of "Satyajit Eye" and the unique structures of "Zul'm", "Al-Zulfiquar
Shaheed" harkens back to this style of Muslimgauze!

All begins with the Sadhu, 22'33 of traditional rhythmic crescendo, fanatic
voices and drum foundation. Die-hard, powerful. Following is Shaheed where
he delivers to you more than 9'00 of near-oriental atmosphere, voices and
echoes, rhythmic parcels and short rises of volume. Fantastic. Then comes
a very Arabic piece (Mosaic Palestine) offering a rhythm of sitar and percussion,
of almost constant dialogues and the last layer of percussion improvisations.
To be listened to at full volume! To finish in beauty, Ayodhya Skin and Stone,
a theme of 30'00, starts with 3'00 of electronic melody before sinking, for
our greater pleasure, in an ode of 27'00 that intermixes the non-stop Zul'm-esque
rhythmic impetus with short atmospheric beaches. The nail of the album.

Recorded in the Mosque of Abraham in Manchester, this album is an inescapable
classic!

review by Cyrille Sottile
translation by T @ The Edge with the use of Power Translator

The following appears in All Music Guide.

Unexpectedly released by Muslimgauze on French label T4 after almost exclusively
working with Soleilmoon and Staalplaat for some time, Shaheed is no idle
one-off. It contains some impressive work even by the band's standards. Consisting
of only four tracks, Shaheed showcases Bryn Jones' ability to create lengthy,
detailed compositions. Continuing the tradition of impressive album openers, "Sadhu" is
a 22-minute monster which takes the basics from many Muslimgauze songs, Arabic
percussion, droning keyboards, and heavily echoed, dub-styled production, and
stretches them even further. The obsessive focus on rhythm at the heart of
Jones' work really comes out here, especially over a series of build-ups
and sudden halts within the song as it progresses. "Shaheed" mixes
hard-to-interpret vocal samples from what sound like a variety of Arabic
speakers with a clipped, sharp rhythm push. "Mosaic Palestine" could
well be what its title says it is, given all the various samples at play
in it, though no exact source is noted for any of them; the core musical
track is an attractive, minimal arrangement of stringed instruments and various
beats and bells. "Ayodhya Skin and Stone" closes things with a
near half-hour effort, often using the shimmering synth string/light percussion
combination familiar from releases like Veiled Sisters. Here, however, the
drumming is live rather than machine-generated, and its intensity changes,
rises, and falls throughout the song. Adding more heavily echoed samples
and removing or altering the organ tones from time to time results in an
often disturbing, murky composition which, while still recognizably Muslimgauze,
has its own unique appeal to it.

Four tracks of extended Muslimgauze magic - from the middle-ish melodic
period.

'Sadhu' opens with 22 minutes of echoed percussive rhythm: not really dubby,
but very playfully deep. The main parts are drums, bells, voices and harmonium.
These swirl and change to a climax, then it drops back to voice and a slow
echoed harmonium which rebuilds, less manipulated before another drop back
to metallic percussion and a voice. At the other end of the album 'Ayodhya
skin and stone' is another extended spin off from Veiled Sisters - the opening
is the string section processed to become a shimmering screen, with the strings
forming out of it, to come and go throughout this 30 minute trip. Voices
talk throughout, drumming rises and falls, harmonium recurs and echoes, entrancingly.
Both these tracks have a 'live' feel to them as they shift and change pace
and structure - rather than the minimal changes see on some later longer
tracks, the variations here are extensive and beguiling.

Between these longer tracks two more focused pieces. 'Shaheed' continues
with the echoing, perhaps taking it even further, with bangings and voices
emerging and mixing. The pace is slower, backed by ringing tones, with some
synth burbles which could be gated. The mesmerising minimalism emerges in
'Mosaic Palestine' which is based on a percussion and string loop with a
solo drum playing over - less echo and more repetition here, and various
samples fed through, including a familiar horn at the end.

A strong rhythmic and melodic album, the length of the tracks has allowed
Muslimgauze to develop and vary the pieces. Different enough to make it worth
picking up if you can find it.